Latest News

Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England

Our new book, Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England: How Our Ancestors Lived Two Centuries Ago, has just been published in the UK in hardback by Little, Brown. It is also available as an e-book. In the US it will be published by Viking Penguin in August 2013, under the title Jane Austen's England. This is a book about life on land for the lower and middle classes around the time of Jane Austen, a companion volume to Jack Tar, which covered virtually the same date range.

Latest Occasional Newsletter

Our newsletter for March is available on this website. If you would like to receive our latest newsletter, for June, please sign up under 'Our Newsletters'.

Forthcoming talks and interviews (listed below)

We are very pleased that we are being booked for talks for 'Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England'. We can tailor our talk to your event. Our first one was at the Cheltenham Science Festival on 7th June, which concentrated on medical matters.

As soon as talks are confirmed, we will list them below. We will then add further details once they become available. Some events are free, but most charge for entrance. Please always check time and date beforehand, as arrangements are sometimes changed!

The staff at Torquay's Waterstones on the night of our talk, all in costume (loaned by Brixham Museum) We are always happy to consider invitations to give talks and interviews (such as radio and TV). This picture was taken at another talk at a branch of Waterstones, where the staff joined in the spirit of things by dressing up for the occasion.

Book launch talk, Taunton, 19th June 2013

We are delighted that the Museum of Somerset will be hosting a launch of our book on 19th June 2013 at 7.30pm (door and bar open at 7pm). We will be giving a talk of about one hour, with plenty of opportunity for questions and discussion afterwards. This will be a talk very much geared towards Somerset's history, and it will be held in the Great Hall, the actual place where Jane Austen's aunt was tried for shoplifting!

The museum has been rated as the number one tourist attraction of Taunton. It is located with the castle and has recently undergone a very impressive refurbishment, making it a museum of history set well within the 21st century.

Tickets are £8 each, available from The Museum of Somerset, Taunton Castle, Castle Green, Taunton TA1 4AA, tel. 01823 255088, email museumofsomerset@somerset.gov.uk

Ways With Words talk, Dartington, 12th July 2013

It's a great pleasure to return to The Telegraph Ways With WordsFestival at Dartington, in Devon. We are giving a talk on Friday 12th July 2013 at 10am in the Barn, called 'The Women of Jane Austen's England', part of a day devoted to 'Remarkable Women, Remarkable Times'. Tickets are £9 (though day tickets can also be purchased. See www.wayswithwords.co.uk or phone 01803 867373.

West Meon talk, 13th July 2013

This talk about 'Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England' will be held at 11.30am on Saturday 13th July 2013 in the church at West Meon, Hampshire, a wonderful village in the South Downs, right in the heart of Jane Austen country. The talk is part of the popular West Meon Festival of Books. So if you want a Jane Austen weekend, come to this talk and visit places like Chawton and Steventon close by. See http://www.westmeonfestival.co.uk/

History Live! talk, Kelmarsh Hall, 21st July 2013

The huge History Live! festival, run by English Heritage at Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire, will be a wonderful weekend of reenactments and other entertainment. Our talk on 'Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England' is scheduled for Sunday 21st July 2013, 12.50pm, 45 minutes long, with an opportunity afterwards for discussion and questions.

Bath talk, 20th September 2013

We will be giving a talk on 'Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England' at 12 noon on Friday 20th September 2013 in the Theatre Royal at Bath, as part of the week-long Jane Austen Festival.

Ugborough talk, Devon, 25th September 2013

Ugborough is a very active village near Plymouth, and we will be returning there on Wednesday 25th September to give a talk on 'Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England'. It will be held at 8pm in the village hall. Parking is possible in the nearby square (by the magnificent church), and there are pubs serving good food. The talk is being hosted by the Ugborough History Society, free to members, and just £1 for non-members! See www.ugborough.com/history/

Appledore talk, Devon, 6th October 2013

We will be giving a talk on the final day of the Appledore Book Festival, which runs from 28th September to 6th October. More details when they become available!

Off the Shelf talk, Sheffield, 23rd October 2013

Off the Shelf is a wonderful festival, and Sheffield itself is well worth a visit. We are therefore very pleased to have been invited to give an illustrated talk in the evening of Wednesday 23rd October, 7.30pm, at The Central United Reformed Church, 60 Norfolk Street, Sheffield, S1. More details here when they become available!

Exeter talk, 11th November 2013

Another lunchtime talk on 'Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England' will be at the Devon and Exeter Institution on Monday 11th November 2013. It starts at 1pm and is open to the public, with no booking required. The Institution is at 7 Cathedral Close, Exeter, Devon EX1 1EZ, tel. 01392 274727. It's well worth coming just to see this historic library, founded 200 years ago, in 1813.

Our Latest Article

Our latest article to be published is called 'The Keys of Egypt: Jean-François Champollion', and it appears in the quarterly journal Medicographia, vol. 35, no. 1 (2013), pp. 113 to 123. It is a beautifully illustrated piece on the decipherment of hieroglyphs, in the journal's 'A Touch of France' section.

Korean Keys of Egypt

Our book The Keys of Egypt is now published in the Korean language in South Korea by Minumsa Publishing Co (ISBN 978-89-374-8430-8 03900). Their website is www.minumsa.com, and we see that (among others) they also publish Stephen King!

Find My Past TV series

The ship known as His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty was the setting for the most famous mutiny in the world. We took part in the filming (by Lion TV) of a programme on board the replica Bounty, built for the 1962 film ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’. This was for a new 10-part family history series called ‘Find My Past’, in association with the genealogy company Findmypast.co.uk. Instead of the formula of taking a celebrity and tracing their family history, this series takes a famous incident in history for each programme. Alas, the ship was lost in the 2012 hurricane.

For the ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ programme, the family historian Nick Barrett tracked down three people whose ancestors were there. We were filmed with Ken Ford, whose ancestor was John Fryer, the sailing master of the Bounty. Before this programme, Ken had no idea that John Fryer was his ancestor. The series is presented by Chris Hollins and is shown on the ‘Yesterday’ TV channel, repeated from time to time.

Ebooks (love them or hate them)

For those of you who love curling up with an ebook (difficult to imagine!) or who love the convenience of ebooks when on a journey or commuting, we are pleased to say that some of our books are now available as ebooks. These are: Jack Tar, The War for All the Oceans, Trafalgar (which is called Nelson's Trafalgar in the US) and Empires of the Plain. They all seem to be priced a little bit or quite a bit cheaper than their equivalent paperbacks.

If you see any other of our books advertised as ebooks, then avoid them as they will be pirate copies from dodgy sources.

Lindsey Davis Rescues Rome

Lindsey Davis, the acclaimed author of the Falco detective novels, set in Rome, has revealed in her Falco: The Official Companion that she would rescue a suitcase of Rome books from the rising floodwaters, including our Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome. She also chose our Handbook as one of her top 10 Rome books on the Guardian website.

Jack Tar

Our book Jack Tar: Life in Nelson's Navy was published in hardcover by Little, Brown in the UK to coincide with Nelson's 250th birthday. It was a very enjoyable book to write, delving into the world of the lower deck, and we hope you will be surprised and fascinated by our discoveries.

Most correspondence from readers comes to us from the USA, so we are very pleased that it is now on sale in the there as a paperback.

Jack Tar Paperback The paperback is published under the Abacus imprint, with a revamped jacket design and a new subtitle - Jack Tar: the extraordinary lives of ordinary seamen in Nelson's navy.

'An enthralling book' (Sunday Telegraph, 5-star review)

'Roy and Lesley Adkins possess that rare knack among historians: merging the academic with the narrative and providing a riveting read which also casts light where it is dark' (Navy News)

We are very pleased that Jack Tar was nominated for the 2009 Mountbatten Maritime Literary Award.